The Live Steam Injector

In the story of modernity, science plays often a role later in the ark. The live steam injector is this spooky little thing you can make with no moving parts. It was not allowed to be patented at the time, because it was a perpetual motion machine. And and what we really want to understand is, subsequently, what was it? How are we to understand it, and how are we to cope with its current state?